What?

Rupert and company are just not hooked up right.

One of the historic curiosities of the NoW's demise has been the resurrection on Twitter of the curious tale of Charles Begley. He was the paper's bespectacled, boyish-looking reporter who then-editor Rebekah Brooks made "Harry Potter correspondent" ahead of the release of the first film about the wizard in 2001, a task that involved him changing his name by deed poll and being ordered to permanently dress in robes and a hat. Begley finally objected after Brooks allegedly ordered him to don the outfit immediately after the September 11 attacks. Here's a Guardian account from the the time, and a Daily Telegraph piece detailing phone transcripts about Begley's worries.

These are simply horrible people -- and even worse perhaps -- ridiculous.

Up the Chain of Command

They're getting closer and closer to Rupert. As Steve Doocy would never say "THIS IS HUGE!"

Rebekah Brooks, the chief executive of Rupert Murdoch’s News International, faces being questioned under police caution over her role in the phone hacking scandal which brought down the News of the World.

“What can I say? I’m not very bright”

Over the last week a pair of Republicans Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum ran into trouble over signing a pledge drafted by a far-right Iowa group to outlaw such things as gay people, pornography and the 13th Amendment.

When confronted with this Santorum had a rather novel answer.

"When I first read it, I was taken aback by it. I can't argue that I wasn't," Santorum told CNN's Candy Crowley.

But...

"But I understand why they're saying it, because it does undermine people's respect for the institution, respect for the people governing this country. If you can't be faithful to the people that you're closest to, then how can we count on you to be faithful to those of us who you represent?"

So in other words, "What they wrote was awful, but what the hey? I'll sign it anyway, because that's the frosty mix of excrement that Rick Santorum stands for".

Bravo.

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Get your own popcorn!

Oh my...it can get worse.



Rupert thinks just like Glenn Beck.

Suck on this

Today's last edition of Murdoch's News of the World had some subtle messages for his British Roger Ailes Rebekkah Brooks who remained wealthily employed while they lost their jobs.

Have staff who put together the News of the World's last ever crossword included some subtle hints for News International's chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, the former editor who told them that the newspaper was to be shut down today?

The Independent's Whitehall Editor, Oliver Wright, has pointed out a few interesting elements in the quickie crossword on page 47. Its clues include:

Across
• Brook (6)
• lamented (8)
• Prestige (6)
• Stink (6)
• Catastrophe (8)

Down
• Digital protection
• Less bright
• Chair
• Pest
• Cease
• Criminal enterprise

I can't say I'm sad about the "grand bargain" falling apart

But the reasons are best summarized by Booman.

Boehner can't find the votes, doesn't want to run to Hoyer to get them, and has backed out of a commitment to a grand deal. The orange bastard is caught on flypaper and he's willing to set every dollar in the world ablaze to extract himself with his gavel intact.

Sound familiar?

The American media is still pretending Murdoch's thuggish behavior is limited only to Great Britain:

“I can think of at least two members of Parliament who could have been criticizing Murdoch five years ago, and said nothing because they were afraid,” said Chris Bryant, a Labour member of Parliament who serves on the Culture, Media and Sport Committee and who has been a persistent critic of Mr. Murdoch.

It was Mr. Bryant who, at a hearing on press standards in 2003, asked Ms. Brooks, then editor of The Sun, whether she had ever paid the police for information. She was seriously displeased with the tough tone of his questions; so were other tabloid editors who spoke at the hearing.

A few months later, Mr. Bryant was the subject of an article in The Mail on Sunday, illustrated by a photo of him in his underpants that he had posted on a gay dating site. (He does not make a secret of his sexuality.) The News of the World also printed the story, copying the account.

After Mr. Bryant spoke last fall in Parliament against tabloid tactics, he said a friend received telephone calls from two Murdoch underlings. “They told him, ‘You know Chris Bryant? Just let him know that this will not be forgotten,’ ” Mr. Bryant related.

Oh, that never happens here...see every Murdoch media outlet.

So

How much pain are the wealthy being asked to endure?

Oh, that's right, none.

All the rest of us can fuck ourselves also.

Rest in peace Betty

Betty Ford was the greatest credit to Gerald Ford I can think of.

Imagine how hounded she and her pro-choice husband would have been in today's Republican Party...they were relatively hounded as it was.

Enjoy

A target of smear merchants giving some preppy practitioner of the same his comeuppance in the latest Murdoch sleazefest.

Obviously, it's the "deficits" fault

The time tested method of making sure no jobs are created has always been cutting government spending.

Good thing everyone in power and the media are making sure this long-known historical truth is not getting in the way of cutting government spending.

Only 18,000 jobs created in June, well below expectations...as usual per Atrios, the unders win.

Thank goodness for hard-hitting journalism

At NBC keeping the TRULY important stories alive.

Yeah, good luck with that one

Here's your campaign slogan:

Hey America, you can kiss your Playboy centerfolds and internet fap fests goodbye if Michelle Bachmann is elected. Tea Party/GOP nutcase Bachmann is the first candidate to sign THE FAMiLY LEADER pledge banning pornography

The pledge was put together by Iowa right-winger Bob Vander Plaats who you suspect with a name like that has a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge collection of snuff porn.

More Schadenfreude please!

Closing down News of the World (for the purpose of a long-planned reorganization) may not get Rupert out of this one.

Today, The Independent reported that hacking allegations have engulfed a second publication of Rupert Murdoch's -- The Sun -- his "best-selling" daily paper in the U.K. Previously, the scandal was confined to Murdoch's News of the World tabloid.

Y'know how to pick 'em

For years David Cameron laid down with Rupert Murdoch and came up with fleas while hiring Rupert's louse Andy Coulson to be his Communications Director.

Sometime thereafter:

Andy Coulson has been told by police that he will be arrested on Friday morning over suspicions that he knew about, or had direct involvement in, the hacking of mobile phones during his editorship of the News of the World.

Wow, public officials going to jail for malfeasance in their past. Dick Cheney is proud to be an American!

Meanwhile, yesterday former Murdoch employee as editor of the News of the World Peirs Anthony bemoaned how the scandal has affected the real victims:

"I have a lot of sympathy for those at the top. They couldn't know what's going on ..."

Which is why, I guess, Mr. Coulson is getting arrested, for not knowing what is going on. Meanwhile, Murdoch and his brood and British Roger Ailes, Rebekkah Brooks, remain employed and rich -- aka victims -- while they shut down News of the World and fire a few hundred employees, all while whining that actual journalist shut them down with y'know journalism. Meanwhile, in the U.S. see the earlier Dick Cheney comment.

But hey, at least the U.S. and Britain have one thing in common, they won't criminally punish torturers and war criminals.

Special relationship indeed.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Hypocrites gonna "Hypocrate"

Via Roger Ailes, National Review prime knob Andy McCarthy:

I love the bumper sticker Rush suggested at the top of the show today: “If you can’t do the time, do the crime in Florida!”

Truer words never bloviated.

Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Bailey?

Her No. 1 Iowa stroker backer:

Can you see Churchill sitting it out? It’s unthinkable. Can you see George Washington in 1776 sitting it out?”

Um, yeah. What do Churchill, Washington and Palin have in common other than brain death?

Could you see Churchill resigning after Tubruk?

Could you see Washington resigning during Valley Forge?

See, rhetoric works better when it is based in analogies that apply to the person you are comparing.

7:11 a.m. Central

Time for the Administration to start brow beating the base and calling them the problem.

Atrios is Saruman with a better grilling technique

He doesn't predict, he merely foretells:

As part of his pitch, Obama is proposing significant reductions in Medicare spending and for the first time is offering to tackle the rising cost of Social Security, according to people in both parties with knowledge of the proposal. The move marks a major shift for the White House and could present a direct challenge to Democratic lawmakers who have vowed to protect health and retirement benefits from the assault on government spending.

The Republicans merely went on the record of wanting to eliminate it, now they will manage to run against the Democrats for actually tampering with it.

Galtland Acres

It isn't taking Minnesota's government shut down long to create a post-apocalyptic world suited for bad Kevin Costner movies or inevitable Viking playoff defeats:

Vandals went wild at abandoned Minnesota state parks over the holiday weekend, wrecking buildings and driving around closed gates as the government shutdown drags toward its second week.

I can only imagine what the Visogoths will do -- oh, that's right they are already running the Minnesota legislature.

Feel free to begin drinking your own urine Minnesotans.

Even "Worser"

Rupert Murdoch's latest abuse gets more outrageous every day:

Scotland Yard is investigating claims that families of members of the armed forces killed in Afghanistan and Iraq have been targeted by Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator who worked for the News of the World.

Murdered children, targeted; terrorist victims, targeted; war casualties, targeted. But leave it to ex-pat jackass Piers Morgan to cry for the real victims, Rupert Murdoch and his cronies.

"I have a lot of sympathy for those at the top. They couldn't know what's going on ..."

Well, I'll be

Even the conservatives in Great Britain (who to be fair would be more liberal than most Democrats in this country sadly) have summed up Rupert thusly:

Zac Goldsmith, a Conservative, said the Murdoch empire had become too powerful.

We have seen, I would say, systemic abuse of almost unprecedented power. There is nothing noble in what these newspapers have been doing. Rupert Murdoch is clearly a very, very talented businessman, he's possibly even a genius, but his organisation has grown too powerful and has abused that power. It has systematically corrupted the police and in my view has gelded this Parliament to our shame.

If only Americans would be similarly "fair and balanced" for real.

A Frothy Mix of Staggering Genius

Makes Bachmann look smart in comparison:

The Headline that is self-explanatory

"Mister Serious"

Paul "Eddie Munster/Ronald Reagan Love Child" Ryan admits that the deficit isn't a worry, it's using tax cuts to beget more tax cuts that matter.

Only the rich people matter, the little people can eat Little Debbies (and at this rate, this means literally small people named Debbie).

The Worst, gets worse

Apparently in Britain those newspapers that don't have Murdochian "Page 3 Girls" have the temerity to practice journalism. In addition to hacking the phones of celebrities for years, now extended to missing children, the Murdoch owned News of the World (NOTW) went even further.

* It is suspected that NOTW hacked into the phones of many of the victims of the July 7, 2005 terrorist bombings of the London subway that killed 52 people.

* It is suspected that several families of missing or murdered children over the last several years had their phones hacked by NOTW.

* NOTW placed a police investigator under surveillance as the latter was investigating the murder of a private eye linked to NOTW. Which doesn't sound at all ominous or the plot of a bad Hollywood thriller (based on a Bill O'Reilly novel).

* The Cameron government, rife with high level officials who worked for Murdoch, is on the verge of approving NewsCorp's multi-billion dollar takeover of yet another major television network (must be using on all that money Rupert made on Myspace) -- the groundswell of opposition is rising, or maybe just for once being listened to. NOTW is losing advertising revenue from major companies.

* The Guardian's Steve Bell perfectly summarizes Murdoch and his British version of Roger Ailes, Rebekah Brooks, claim it is "inconceivable" she knew of all this phone hacking.



Meanwhile, in this country, the matter is still just a blip as the media dictates our outrages at other things -- I mean Nancy Grace had built a gibbet for a hanging and everything!

Nobody watches big media's back in this country better than big media. A policy that has kept Howard Kurtz pay well into the six figures for many a year.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

But we'd already decided upon a hanging?

Apparently the unending drumbeat of everyone demanding guilt, especially those with a press badge, has run up against a unanimous jury. Bloodlust goes unrequited...for now.

Can we just let justice not be a sideshow again?*

Yeah, I know and you had long ago built the gibbet.

*Yes, I know, until the next zoo.

Nah, Too liberal

Believes in too many infrastructure expenditures on Concentration Camps and Autobahns -- though they'll probably like his lebensraum policy.

Add to the growing list of candidates considering a bid for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012 America’s most famous white-power advocate: David Duke.

Hard to believe

The History Channel actually has a decent show about decently done history with "How the States Got their Shapes".

And now back to "Pawn Stars".

Unattended

Yee-haw, I guess the market has decided that Michael Moore will be the next President.

According to one of the scant 50 people who attended the advance screening in Houston on Thursday (ed: of the ironically named "Undefeated"), the film is fairly predictable although there are some lessons to be learned.

The Worst

The American press has long managed not to report on the phone-hacking scandal that Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper 'News of the World' perpetrated. One never knows when Rupert will get out his check book for you to work at the Wall Street Journal or FoxNews so why harm your future prospects with actual journalism?

But maybe, just maybe, the actions of Murdoch's minions have finally gone too far.

In 2002 a teenage English girl Milly Dowler disappeared -- News of the World Reporters tapped into her telephone messages during the police investigation. Bad enough, but that is not all:

News of the World journalists intercepted – and deleted – the voice-mail messages of Milly Dowler.

The messages were deleted by journalists in the first few days after Milly's disappearance in order to free up space for more messages. As a result friends and relatives of Milly concluded wrongly that she might still be alive. Police feared evidence may have been destroyed.

If there's a low-class act of faux journalism to be performed in this world it has Murdoch's fingers all over it.

Yet, magically, the malfeasance never gets reported here.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Well that's kind of a relief

I was worried that suddenly I had a roach invasion, but it is just earwigs.

Yes, I have no life.

Looks like FoxNews

Was tweeting while masturbating.

Funny, you don't look a day over 220

Happy 235th America.

"America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between."
— Oscar Wilde

Obviously Wilde didn't live long enough to understand the sophistication of the Steel-Cage Match involving Baron Von Rashke, Nick Bockwinkle and the Iron Sheik; The Real Housewives of Hollywood; or twittering a shot of one's junk.

Or, of course, the tricorn hat guy at a Teaparty rally who thinks the 1812 Overture is really about Andrew Jackson.

So Happy Birthday anyway.

Today

Has been one of the best 'Meet the Press' episodes ever.

I look forward to the NY Times follow up article

On the economic difficulties of the very rich.

The final figures show that the median pay for top executives at 200 big companies last year was $10.8 million. That works out to a 23 percent gain from 2009. The earlier study had put the median pay at a none-too-shabby $9.6 million, up 12 percent

Oh dear, and how can these poor sufferers be expected to pay slightly more in taxes when their workers are getting all greedy in comparison?

The average American worker was taking home $752 a week in late 2010, up a mere 0.5 percent from a year earlier. After inflation, workers were actually making less.

Yeah, but what about the average worker's corporate jet tax breaks, huh? Huh?!!!

Michele Bachmann wishes you to celebrate

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

Happy 298th or so birthday 'Murica.

It's been a while

Surely Kim Jong-Il has something crazy to do or say?

Or does Mitch McConnell just make all other villains disappear into the background?

Yes, he sucks but at least

Michael Bey is also intellectually lazy.



Not that I'll see it without a commentary track making fun of it, but I still just pray there are no robot-balls in it again.

Degree of Overlap? Pretty high

26 Percent Of Americans Don’t Know U.S. Declared Independence From Great Britain

Harris Interactive Poll (conducted July 6-9 2007): 26% viewed Bush's job rating as "positive"

Speaking of over covered stories

When is Casey Anthony showing up at Teaparty events?

The Digby Beat

Tasering...it's now for kids you know and who you are aware have speech impediments and who you pull over while they are riding a bike -- surely the most dangerous kind of criminal masterminds.

Memories

Why does this clown have a job? /rhetorical

Exactly!!!

James Fallows:

The real problem is the dickishness of our mainstream political analysis, especially from the "savviest" practitioners. Back during my days as media critic, I argued in Breaking the News and a related Atlantic cover story that the laziest and ultimately most destructive form of political coverage came when journalists seemed to imagine that they were theater critics or figure-skating judges. The what of public affairs didn't interest them. All they cared about was the how.

In this case, the "what" of Obama's press conference -- the unbelievable recklessness of mainly House Republicans in inviting the largest self-inflicted economic wound in American history -- deserves every bit of frustration Obama showed, and lots more.

This is the "dog and pony show" put into the mainstream of media for big bucks that goes back to Broder, but set on high-beam by Cable news. Assholes like Halperin get paid big big bucks to look serious and discuss absolutely nothing. And the effect is nothing less than negligent homicide of the body politic.

Meanwhile we've had a mantra for forty years about "not negotiating with terrorists" while the current GOP is engaging in the most damaging form of terrorism against most every American without a nine-figure investment portfolio.

And thanks to the modern media, it's all about whether a black man trying to avoid it is allowed to look even mildly perturbed. The pieces are all set, the Republicans are allowed to be complete assholes and screw everybody and the fault will be Obama's for daring to ask for one fucking thing and then failing to be appropriately obsequious about it.

A short summary of tax loopholes the GOP refuses to close

Talk about walking into a trap to kiss Grover's ass.

I especially love the horse racing dodge, chinless wonder Mitch McConnell's most personal trinket.

Dear Mr. President

I got an email from you last night with "No Subject" in the header.

There's no way I'm opening that...it might be a jet tax.

Standing up for the little people

I truly cannot believe the GOP has drawn a line in the sand over this:

A visibly angry Santorum told Fox News host Greta Van Susteren that Obama’s targeting of corporate jet owners defies the candidate’s pledge to bring Americans together

And Santorum wasn't alone, a whole slew of Republican Senators joined in, defending the right of Corporations to keep buying their own jets rather than hiring people or paying their workers.

But they didn't call the President a "dick" so their position is quite sound and acceptable with the rest of the Village.

Shorter Glenn Beck on Obama

Going out as KKKlassy as you'd expect.

Nobody could have anticipated

Quitting might as well be her middle name:

"As opposed to me who is one 24/7"

Your liberal media.

While discussing President Obama's Wednesday press briefing on "Morning Joe," Mark Halperin made a gaffe about President Obama, calling him "a d*ck."

Poor Mark doesn't want to pay a few hundred more dollars in taxes over his seven-figure income.

But Gradma Millie and her medicare can go fuck themselves, if you suggest otherwise you are being a "dick".

Yeah, you bet

I understand he became a real Second Amendment strict constructionist:

John Lennon was a closet Republican, who felt a little embarrassed by his former radicalism, at the time of his death - according to the tragic Beatles star's last personal assistant.

Fred Seaman worked alongside the music legend from 1979 to Lennon's death at the end of 1980 and he reveals the star was a Ronald Reagan fan who enjoyed arguing with left-wing radicals who reminded him of his former self.

Good use of $4 trillion

Makes those medicare and food stamp cuts so worthwhile:

Kabul hotel siege leaves at least 11 civilians dead

The infinite loop of ‘parody’

We all know that a Pulitzer campaign for World Net Daily is around the corner. Just look at this brave editorial stand of a few weeks ago.

WND.COMMENTARY
Loser pays tort reform
Exclusive: Chuck Norris rallies for law to reduce serial litigants' frivolous lawsuits
Posted: May 16, 2011
1:00 am Eastern

By Chuck Norris

Which leads one to wonder whether Chuck Norris will call up fellow scholar Ted Nugent and discuss their position on this or maybe just the Bowflex:

World Net Daily editor Joseph Farah and author Jerome Corsi have finally made good on their threats and sued Esquire for a satirical article that claimed that they were no longer members of the so-called 'birther' movement...

...the suit calls Corsi a "world renowned author" and says WND "competes nationally and internationally" with Esquire.

Yes, they truly compete. Many are the times Americans debate over buying a copy of Esquire versus opening their uncle's forwarded emails about what recently found Kenyan birth certificates show. Clearly there's no frivolity here.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Hast thou considered thine own hands and how they doth work?

He hath harshed Shakespeare's buzz -- and I'm out of pot jokes.

A South African anthropologist wants to dig up William Shakespeare's bones to find out if the playwright smoked pot. He got this crazy idea from an earlier study which turned up pipe fragments in Shakespeare's garden that were coated with a marijuana residue.

I once had a scene in Timon of Athens -- and whoever wrote that was under the influence of something -- and it wasn't genius. Though they were obviously less stoned than the person who while deciding which Shakespeare to do that year picked Timon of Athens.

A version only a major drug-dealer could afford

If you buy this, not only with the DEA and ATF be on your ass, but you'll go up against the wall -- eventually -- before the people in the First Class flight-pods.

Scarface will be released on Blu-ray September 6th, but we should mention that the true fans (and cigar enthusiasts) can snag a limited edition copy in its own hand-crafted humidor box. There will only be 1,000 sold and we're sure your imported cigars will appreciate the untreated Spanish cedar and 1,000 coat brilliant finish. You can see a few angles in the pictures here, while the Blu-ray trailer and snaps of winning fan art to be included in the set as collectible cards await after the break. How much will it cost to get your hands on one of these boxes? The MSRP is $999, but Amazon as always is offering them for the low, low price of just $699.

They think there are a thousand assholes who might buy this?

King Corn

The Sweet Corn will be late in Iowa this year because of the lack of sunshine we've had this Summer...so it will be more like it used to be. But the most shocking aspect of the State's main crop (and in many ways its curse and blessing) is this:

Sweet corn typically amounts to fewer than 6,000 of the state's 13.5 million acres devoted to corn production. The rest of the corn is used for animal feed, ethanol and sweeteners.

Looks like the Pope gets twitter

All of the sudden.

FoxNews says KILL IT!!!

Austerity measures are good for him to poop on!

Loukanikos, a stray who lives on the streets of Athens, Greece, has become an unlikely celebrity... for his dedication to anti-government protests.

The clearly opinionated mutt has been pictured on the front line of protests, dodging tear gas and barking at riot police, for the last three years.

Truly "man's" (and "woman's") best friend. Now, bring on Gorenikos, the Climate Change Spaniel or Spot the Stimulus Hound demanding somebody consider more jobs that involve kibble!

Via Balloon Juice.

Convenient Myths

From "creationism" to "lower taxes for the rich" the GOP is full of them, hell built upon them:

In fact, if you ranked each year since 1950 by overall job growth, the top five years would all boast marginal tax rates at 70 percent or higher. The top 10 years would share marginal tax rates at 50 percent or higher. The two worst years, on the other hand, were 2008 and 2009, when the top marginal tax rate was 35 percent. In the 13 years that the top marginal tax rate has been at its current level or lower, only one year even cracks the top 20 in overall job creation.

Of course, when you are Diane Sawyer, David Gregory, or any of the network or cable news stars making seven figures what possible personal bias would you have about your own tax rate? That Nantucket or Hampton's kitchen needs another new model of stove and a chance to pay Mario Batali to cook with it.

So screw ever reporting this inconvenient fact, just keep on letting me get that new sailboat.

But of course

Medicaid's vociferous opponent and serial-killer enthusiast Michele Bachmann has yet another chit in the hypocrite prize.

While Rep. Michele Bachmann has forcefully denounced the Medicaid program for swelling the "welfare rolls," the mental health clinic run by her husband has been collecting annual Medicaid payments totaling over $137,000 for the treatment of patients since 2005, according to new figures obtained by NBC News.

The previously unreported payments are on top of the $24,000 in federal and state funds that Bachmann & Associates, the clinic founded by Marcus Bachmann, a clinical therapist, received in recent years under a state grant to train its employees, state records show.

Much rather have a Dutch Letter

When last Sarah Palin deigned to visit the lower 48 she had resigned from her bus tour halfway through. Which was only fitting. But the excuse we heard was jury duty, I guess she got out of it for cause -- a profound lack of understanding of the law (or jury duty) -- because she's back just two days later.

And even worse for me, she's near.

Sarah Palin's going to Iowa.

The production and publicity firms behind the new documentary about Palin released a statement today confirming the former Alaska governor and her husband will attend the Tuesday premiere of "The Undefeated" in Pella, Iowa.

The film will be shown at the Pella Opera House at 5 p.m. central time and a "traditional Iowa cookout" will follow.

It is an amusing title for the person on the losing end of the last Presidential election where she was quite "defeated", especially since right now she'd lose badly in Iowa to the "Uncommitted" Michele Bachmann.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

A nation breathes a collective sigh of relief

Or perhaps that's just the collective sound of "ewwwww":

Hugh Hefner is already on the rebound.

The Playboy founder and former E! Entertainment Television reality star, 85, said Monday that he’s dating Miss November 2010.

She's only 58 years younger so it's totally not-creepy.

Yep...

Hey, the President means what he says he says!

One Democrat who was there said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) bluntly asked Obama whether he was willing to fight for Democratic priorities amid GOP calls for trillions of dollars in spending cuts.

In asking the question, Waxman said he’d asked several Republicans about their White House meeting the day before and had been concerned by their response.

“To a person, they said the president’s going to cave,” Waxman told Obama, according to his colleague’s account.

“If you’re not going to cave, eliminating that misunderstanding is very, very important to the negotiations,” the lawmaker said, retelling Waxman’s message. “And if you’re going to cave, tell us right now.”

Obama, however, “didn’t answer the question,” the Democrat added. “Obama got in a huff, and he said, ‘I’m the president of the United States, my words carry weight’ — which is not the answer,” the lawmaker said. “That’s not what anyone challenges. It’s whether he is doing this negotiation in the right way.”

And that ladies and gentlemen, is why we now have the Public Option!!!


...what?

Musn't accept possible holes in theory...after all I'm still rich!

Who could not have anticipated?

...states that cut the most funding lost the most jobs. And according to the site, in fact, the country is split pretty evenly between the 24 states that cut spending between 2007 and 2010, and the 25 that expanded government outlays.

On average, states that increased spending performed significantly better than cost-cutting states, with their unemployment rates actually dropping by 0.2 percent (as opposed to 1 percent increase in cost-cutting states), private-sector employment increasing by 1.4 percent (as opposed to a 2.1 percent loss) and 0.5 percent "real economic growth" since the start of the recession (as compared to a 2.9 percent economic contraction relative to the national economic trend).

Legal "Scholar"

Ann Althouse is more than just a unending source of material for Thers. She is, rather inconceivably, a Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin. According to the University's website she teaches Constitutional Law and Civil Procedure in Madison, the State's Capitol, literally blocks away from the State's Supreme Court.

She's "taught" at the University for nearly 15 years.

Yet when the matter of State Supreme Court Justice David Prosser placing his manly hands around fellow Justice Ann Walsh Bradley's womanly neck, Althouse found a novel way to defend the conservative from this vile assault upon his hands by a woman's neck:

"From what I have heard, Bradley is significantly larger than Prosser."

To which Wisconsin blogger Illusory Tenant reasonably asks,

What, she's never even seen them?

It's strange that Althouse, who allegedly professes the law in Madison, Wisconsin, has not attended a hearing at the State Supreme Court, which also sits in Madison (just a brief sashay down State St. in fact).

She's only been a Law Professor in Madison for 15 years, how could she possibly know what the State Supreme Court members look like?

Just look at this picture, Ann Walsh Bradley is clearly a well-known bruiser of epic proportions. Crack research as always Althouse.

Although Althouse does know some judges well -- those on American Idol.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Yeah, it's gonna be a close one between she and Palin

Michelle Bachman inadvertently (I HOPE!) compares herself to John Wayne Gacy...a killer clown.

White man's burden

I was pretty sure we already had the Teaparty revision of the revolutionary period with Mel Gibson's "The Patriot" where Mel managed to liberate the American south single-handedly while making all African-Americans both free and isolated on an off-shore location known as "Sugar Tits Island".

But noooooooooooooooo.

James Patrick Riley and Jonathan Wilson, apparently undeterred by the limited success of the last entertainment venture aimed at Tea Partiers, have teamed up to make Courage, New Hampshire, a one-hour drama about Colonial America that premieres Sunday in California.

What Atrios said

We obviously must cut medicare and food stamps and not raise taxes slightly for multi-millionaires...

The amount the U.S. military spends annually on air conditioning in Iraq and Afghanistan: $20.2 billion.

That's more than NASA's budget. It's more than BP has paid so far for damage during the Gulf oil spill. It's what the G-8 has pledged to help foster new democracies in Egypt and Tunisia.

Bitter and over-react much

K-Lo is taking this idea of even more people getting able to be married around her even worse than expected. When one conservative at NRO says "good for New York" it is just too much:

Do not be so quick to dismiss the North Korea comparison, Mike. We are witnessing tyranny today that is fostered by a false sense of freedom, a tyranny that faux tolerance ferments.

Yeah, gay marriage IT'S JUST LIKE NORTH KOREA! That sure sounds like a sane and dispassionate comparison.

Matthew 18:20

So The Usual Suspects are threatening to ban legislators who voted for NY's gay marriage law from Catholic church and parochial school events. No doubt the usual shrieks to withhold communion are imminent.

To the legislators I say, "You don't need them". Remember your Matthew 18:20:

For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

And these guys wonder why Catholics are abandoning the church in droves.

So I guess it is time for the "she had it coming" defense

This is going to get ugly, and it is solely because of the ugliness of Judge Prosser.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Ann Walsh Bradley issued a statement late Saturday saying that fellow Justice David Prosser choked her and disputing claims that she attacked him first.

"The facts are that I was demanding that he get out of my office and he put his hands around my neck in anger in a chokehold," she said. "Those are the facts and you can try to spin those facts and try to make it sound like I ran up to him and threw my neck into his hands, but that's only spin.

"Matters of abusive behavior in the workplace aren't resolved by competing press releases," she said.

"I'm confident the appropriate authorities will conduct a thorough investigation of this incident involving abusive behavior in the workplace."

That's obviously a criminal assault and Prosser has to go. You sir, are a full grown man resorting to a physical attack during a temper tantrum, that's enough -- that it is against a woman is just another additional helping of loathsome.

Well, time to root for France

The Women's World Cup kicks off this morning with the first match being Nigeria facing France (the French win the National Anthem battle...but then they always do IMO). Nothing against the individuals making up the Nigerian national team, but it's hard to root for a team that has a coach going on a witch hunt.

For the past two years the Nigerian Football Federation has conducted a witch-hunt to kick women off the national team who were suspected of being gay. And the team's coach just bragged to the New York Times that she has dealt with “the big problem” of lesbianism.

This would be even more singularly outrageous but for the fact that one of the more important financial backers of the American men's professional soccer league helps fund anti-gay activism in this country.

Conservative "Patriotism" clearly defined

Wow, now that's some fucked up shit, you go, I guess, Ginger-Asshole:



Go ahead another country, kill some people from my country, because apparently to Mr. Trevino being a good American means letting another even better country have a few free shots at your fellow Americans.

Sociopath may be one description of it, but it is definitely sick.

Happy Sunday, the Prosser Way!!!

I understand Wisconsin Supreme Court Judge and all-star wrestler David Prosser attended mass this morning and managed to take a folded metal chair and use it to beat some non-kowtowing nuns.

Good job Wisconsin

Good thing you kept this asshole on the state Supreme Court...nice judicial temperament.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser allegedly grabbed fellow Justice Ann Walsh Bradley around the neck in an argument in her chambers last week, according to at least three knowledgeable sources...

They say an argument that occurred before the court’s release of a decision upholding a bill to curtail the collective bargaining rights of public employees culminated in a physical altercation in the presence of other justices. Bradley purportedly asked Prosser to leave her office, whereupon Prosser grabbed Bradley by the neck with both hands.

Apparently he failed to bring a club and the rohypnol.

Not taking it well

Poor K-Lo now she has less chance of a sexless marriage than ever.

Progress

This man is a Republican.

Yeah, he's a Texas Republican alright

They ooze class:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry made a joke at a Latino convention that an appointee’s name sounds like a bottle of tequila — and it didn’t go over very well...

Perry reportedly joked that he liked how a man named Jose Cuevas had been appointed to the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission because his name sounds like Jose Cuervo, a brand of tequila. The joke fell flat.

“Perry struggled to regain his confidence as he described Texas as a land of opportunity,” the Associated Press reported.

Perry next went to a gathering of rabbis and joked about how many of them had "Gold" in their names.

Words to live by

After an unfair review of a Thai restaurant (as in a restaurant in Thailand) a food critic was found to have been unduly harsh...not to have lied...but to have been so mean about it and thereby fined and jailed.

I think Gawker sums this up well:

Let's all now take a moment to savor our freedom to bitch long-windedly about our various dining disappointments on the pages of Yelp. It truly is a wonderful country in which we live.

A message from Planet Chelonia

As budget negotiations broke down over the issue of Eric Cantor and Jon Kyle not getting 100% of what they want as a bipartisan gesture, it is good to look upon the men who have made Washington D.C. the shining beacon of non-accomplishment it has become.

When Democrats have asked for some additional stimulus as part of any budget deal with the hope of y'know making more employees that might pay more taxes --- oh and be happier with their lives, it was met with a stinging rebuke.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday morning … ripped Senate Democrats for calling for more stimulus spending as part of the deal.

“What planet are they on?” he asked.

The Planet Earth perhaps you've heard of it? And upon it in this country the unemployment rate is 9.1% and the underemployment rate is much higher.

But McConnell never has thought much outside of his own little shell.

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Dear New Jersey,

You voted for him.

xxx...res

Bad couple of weeks for fugitives

They arrested long-time and rather inappropriately famous Boston mobster James "Whitey" Bulger after seventeen years on the lamb...in California.

Was he on his way to a teaparty rally?

Natural 20

Instead of flowers will people be leaving their old 4-sided dice and pewter figurines?

The Gary Gygax Memorial Fund has reached a huge milestone. We have been granted land for the memorial site at Donian Park.

Still, sounds better than Jim Morrison's grave in Paris.

It is indeed

The best low-brow food place in 'Murica, as long as you just have dessert*.

Dairy Queen.

*Although perhaps just the second best dessert.

I understand the man is "fat"

And I'm not supposed to listen to liberals more than five pounds overweight, but Al Gore sums up how Americans are the modern Easter Islanders in just over one paragraph:

Maybe it's just easier, psychologically, to swallow the lie that these scientists who devote their lives to their work are actually greedy deceivers and left-wing extremists — and that we should instead put our faith in the pseudoscientists financed by large carbon polluters whose business plans depend on their continued use of the atmospheric commons as a place to dump their gaseous, heat-trapping waste without limit or constraint, free of charge.

The truth is this: What we are doing is functionally insane.

The whole of the article is available online at Rolling Stone, it has gotten some attention because of deserved criticism of President Obama, but it is really an indictment of not just our politics but our media's coverage of climate change.

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake]

I Have An Idea

How about Democrats/liberals/progressives/lefties/left-leaning indies spent the next fourteen months fighting each other?

So awesome.

P.S. Did the grand tradition of the left fighting itself begin in 1793 France, or does it go back farther than that?

But of course...

It's her standard operating policy.

Godwin's Campground

I guess from the photographs it does look like an American Berchtesgaden:

The picturesque mountain town of Kalispell, Montana (pop: 19,927) is becoming a haven for extremists after several marquee names from various angry white person groups have set up shop there...

Some of the more well-known figures in the anti-government movement are re-emerging in the Kalispell area, according to news reports and the SPLC.

They include former Aryan Nations member Karl Gharst, who last year screened a movie, "Epic: The Story of the Waffen SS," at the Kalispell library. The showing drew 200 protesters.

White supremacist April Goede and her twin daughters — who once formed the racist pop singing group Prussian Blue — have moved to Kalispell.

Others include patriot leader and former Constitution Party vice presidential candidate Chuck Baldwin, who believes the U.S. is headed for a fight between big-government globalists and independent patriots; Stewart Rhodes, founder of Oath Keepers, which wants law enforcement officers and military personnel to sign an oath against a one-world government conspiracy; and Randy Weaver, whose standoff with federal marshals at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992 kick-started the modern patriot movement.

That is a concentration camp of crazy.

I think the use of the word "run" might be a bit ambitious

Unless Hefner's Lark is turbocharged and available, I think slowly backaway bride would be more accurate.

The back up plan

I thought Gingrich was done imploding, but maybe he's like the Crab Nebula and we'll be seeing the imploding for several thousand years to come?

Newt Gingrich loves Tiffany & Co enough to have held a $250,000 - $500,000 credit account at the high-end jeweler. But did you know he loves the place so much he had a second, $500,000 - $1 million line of credit?

I wonder if the second account was supposed to be unknown by wife #3?

Start the revolution without me

Because I have to work.

But these statistics at Mother Jones will, as Meteor Blades says make your blood boil (which isn't good for you in my medical opinion).

You sir, are a goddamned fraud

Hey Kent, here's an idea (aside from a solo sex act) for your concern-trolling:

The debt-reduction package emerging in talks between the White House and congressional leaders would not “fundamentally change” the alarming rate of growth in the national debt, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee said Tuesday.

Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said the goal of slicing more than $2 trillion from the federal budget by 2021 falls far short of the savings needed to stabilize borrowing, reenergize the economy and avert the threat of a debt crisis.

Maybe you goddamned fraud you should have not been so for saving the Bush Tax cuts.

Memories

Tonight on FoxNews

OBAMA REPRESSES WHITE CHILD'S FREEDOM OF SPEECH!!!!

But of course

Joad Cressbeckler: Homosexuality A Necessity On Cold Mountaintops

Oh yeah, they're all really bright

Beep beep blurb rat-at-tat-tat goes the 9-pin dot matrix of talking points and spits out...



Except y'know they did, eh.

Oh, and also if we are going to discuss Canada's lower unemployment, I guess we can point out that unlike American employers they do not have to factor in health insurance costs in hiring decisions.

So when does that happen...eh?

I'm naive when it screws the little guy

Self-proclaimed originalist and hard-bitten realist has the most naive view of human nature ... when it helps his world view in which the average person MUST get screwed.

...left to their own devices most managers in any corporation—and surely most managers in a corporation that forbids sex discrimination—would select sex-neutral, performance-based criteria for hiring and promotion that produce no actionable disparity at all.

Yes, of course, it SURELY must be true because it just must be SURELY true. SURELY Spoken like a man with a lifetime job and who has SURELY managed not to ever actually listen to what another human being SURELY has said.

Move along there's no candid photographs

It's okay, he's an asshole for God.

Roll Call is reporting Monday that U.S. Rep. Todd Akin spent $3,407 of taxpayer funds from his congressional account to pay for a tea party-backed rally in 2009.

Use of taxpayer money for strictly political events is prohibited by House rules. However, the funds can be used for press conferences, which is how the event was advertised. But Roll Call reporter Paul Singer points out that unlike most press conferences, “no questions were taken from the press and ... it opened with a prayer, the national anthem and a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.”

Endless Summer

It's the first day of Summer so good to know the latest bad news as Republicans try to out strip-mine each other on climate change and Democrats shrug their shoulders while our environment continues to fall apart.

Surface temperatures in the Arctic since 2005 have been higher than for any five-year period since record keeping began in 1880, according to a new report from the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program, an international group within the Arctic Council that monitors the Arctic environment and provides advice on Arctic environmental protection...Temperatures in the Arctic permafrost have risen by up to 3.5 degrees in the past two to three decades

There's a lot of methane in permafrost which is released as it the temperature rises, which only makes climate change accelerate...so awesome. I'm waiting for John McCain to blame immigrants.

Stay KKKlassy asshole

Without any evidence, indeed against the weight of evidence, St. John McCain blames immigrants for setting the Arizona wildfires.

Time for more outdoor barbecuing --- the thing that y'know probably started the actual wildfires.